by James Hunt
“Christ, my balls are about to freeze off.” Snow drifted off Jimmy’s body as he rubbed his arms for warmth. “What the hell is taking them so long?”
Dennis examined the Glock in his hand then racked the slide back and stared at the bullet in the chamber. “I told them to be thorough.”
“Well, I want my own bed,” Jimmy said. “And a nice warm woman to go with it.”
“Just remember not to hit her too hard before you drag her back to your cave,” Mulls said. “Unless you want to be fucking a corpse.”
“She’d only have to be warm for a minute.” Jimmy wheezed laughter, his teeth chattering from the cold.
“We do this right,” Dennis said, “and we can have whatever we want down there, and for as long as we want it.”
Branches rustled to Dennis’s right, followed by quick footfalls, and all three of them turned their weapons toward two men with scruffy beards and long, matted hair.
“Put those things down before you kill one of us.” Martin waved his big hand and collapsed next to Dennis and tried to catch his breath as his brother, Billy, followed suit. Both brothers had been freelance killers before the FBI got ahold of them. Their skill sets also made them excellent trackers. They’d been part of Mulls’s crew on the inside.
“Well?” Dennis asked.
“Eighty-plus people,” Martin answered, clearing his throat, still huffing. The man’s prime had ended more than a decade past. But his mind remained sharp. “Mostly vacationers up here for skiing. A few of the locals look like they had weapons, but no more than a dozen.”
“Pigs?” Mulls asked.
“A sheriff and six deputies,” Billy answered. The age gap between the brothers was enough that Billy could pass as Martin’s son. “They’ve got two on watch, keeping their eyes on the only road into town, which is mostly asleep.”
“We should hit them now,” Mulls said. “We go in quick, round them up, and show ’em who’s boss.” He turned to Dennis. “They can’t call anyone, can’t drive anywhere, right?”
“Give me the rundown of the buildings,” Dennis said.
Martin and Billy recited everything they’d seen, and Dennis was glad for the details. They’d counted the number of entrances and exits for every building in the town, which numbered at twelve. Once they finished, Dennis turned to Mulls.
“We take out the deputies first,” he said. “And we do it quietly. We put three men to a building. All twelve groups need to have a gun and a point man. We funnel everyone out and take them—” He turned back to Martin. “You mentioned a town hall, where is it?”
“East end of the town.”
“We corral them there,” Dennis said. “We’ll have to deal with a few hotheads, but once we take care of them, the rest of the sheep will fall into line. Won’t take more than a few bullets to start flying before everyone shits their pants and just wants it to stop.”
“And then we get to do whatever we want, right?” Jimmy’s eyes grew wide, like a kid’s on Christmas morning.
“You take what you want,” Dennis answered. “Everybody gets a piece.”
“I just want a piece of ass,” Jimmy said then turned to Martin and Billy with longing in his eyes. “Women down there?”
“Yeah.” A wide grin spread over Martin’s face. “Plenty of them.”
“Get everyone in position,” Dennis said. “No one moves until the first gunshot.”
Word spread, and all those twitching hands and bouncing knees exploded into action. The groups of three departed from the woods quietly and beelined toward their assigned buildings. It wasn’t until everyone had left that Dennis, Mulls, and Jimmy snaked their way toward the sheriff’s station.
The familiar surge of adrenaline that accompanied a heist returned, and Dennis had forgotten how much he’d missed it. Once a man had a taste of it, he never wanted anything else. There was rebellious freedom to it, violence that awakened the most primal human instincts. Every man in an orange jumpsuit knew that freedom. Crime was the worst kind of addiction, and every man was eager to have that needle prick their arms again.
Dennis and his group approached the back side of the sheriff’s station. He peered down the alley and heard the voices of the two deputies on watch. He held out his palm, and Mulls handed him a knife. He curled his stiff and frozen fingers around it and crept down the alley, Mulls disappearing to the other side. Jimmy went in through the back door, taking care of the cops that slept.
With his feet frozen, it was nearly impossible for Dennis to keep his footfalls quiet, and each step was met with a cringe as he waited for his cover to be blown. But he grew nearer, and the banter between the cops at the front never broke.
Dennis glued himself to the building’s wall, slithering toward the flickering glow of the candles the deputies had set out. He stopped just before the wall’s end, knife poised to strike. He peered around the edge and saw the pair of deputies in the street, rifles hoisted over their shoulders, staring out into the darkness of the road.
Mulls appeared on the other side and locked eyes with Dennis. Both men nodded then crept from the shadows toward their victims.
Dennis had the knife raised high, his body stiff from cold and concentration, and when he was two steps from the deputy’s throat, his shadow betrayed him, casting into the deputy’s line of sight. The man spun, and Dennis led with the knife, metal digging into flesh just as the deputy squeezed the trigger, breaking the night’s silence.
Blood splattered Dennis’s face as the deputy clawed at Dennis’s arm. He yanked the blade from the deputy’s throat, blood dripping from the knife’s tip. Crimson stained the snow, and he glanced over to find Mulls standing over the second deputy with his blood-soaked knife.
What took only seconds felt like an eternity. And Dennis barely had time to notice the shouts inside the sheriff’s station before the entire town erupted with gunfire and screams. The inmates hooted and hollered, bloodlust taking control of their senses.
Frightened and confused townspeople were flung out into the cold, shivering in their pajamas, plucked from the warmth of their beds. One inmate held a young woman dressed in a lacy teddy, gripping her by the hair. Another prisoner came out holding her man at gunpoint.
“Oh, she’s gonna warm me up real good!” He laughed, and the woman screamed.
“You don’t fucking touch her!” But the man’s threat fell empty as he was kicked to the ground, and the prisoner with the gun to his head pumped the shotgun.
The man froze at the sound and remained on his knees as he lifted his hands in the air. His woman looked back at him, crying, struggling against the inmate who would rape her. Dennis expected a lot of that for the next couple of nights. That and killing.
“Not here,” Dennis said, icy clouds forming from his excited and labored breaths. “We wait until we’ve got everyone.” He looked at the woman and then her husband. “Then the fun begins.”
A gunshot thundered up ahead, and glass shattered, and Dennis caught the blur of an orange jumpsuit that was flung outside. The barrel of a rifle penetrated the open door, and then a bullet was fired into the prisoner’s gut.
The door then slammed shut quickly, and Dennis joined the other inmates that swarmed the rebellious shooter, a smile on his face. They had a fighter on their hands.
Dennis, Jimmy, and Mulls paused at the door. Dennis peered through the broken window, the boards of the front porch groaning as he did. A gunshot thundered inside, and Dennis ducked out of the way of the bullet screaming into the street.
“Son of a bitch!” Mulls said, growling.
“He’s heading out the back!” Jimmy said, staring down the side of the house.
Dennis led the pursuit, and the small backyard quickly gave way to a cluster of trees, spying to figures fleeing through the forest.
Deeper into the woods, the snow on the ground thickened, and both parties were forced to little more than a crawl. But Dennis raised his gun, bringing the man’s back into his crosshairs. He fo
rced his arm steady, and he squeezed the trigger.
The man flung his arms wildly as he plummeted face-first into the snow. The rifle flew from his hands, and the woman shrieked, dropping to her man’s side, too hysterical to reach for the rifle in the snow.
“Drake, get up! Get up!” The woman flung her body over the dead man’s, her face turned up toward Dennis, staring down the barrel of the pistol. “What did you do?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Dennis said, catching his breath but smiling as Jimmy and Mulls caught up with him. He motioned to Mulls. “Take her back with the others.”
The woman burst into sobbing wails and flopped back over the man. It took both Mulls and Jimmy to drag her back, the woman’s cries echoing all the way back into town.
Dennis lingered behind for a moment, staring down at the dead man. He saw the glint of metal on the man’s left ring finger. A wedding band, the gold shining brightly against the backdrop of the white snow that wasn’t covered with the man’s blood, melting it into a red slush.
It had been a long time since Dennis had seen blood spilled. It twinkled in his eyes like fire, and his grin stretched from ear to ear. He bent down and poked his finger in it, swirling the blood and ice in little circles.
The metallic scent of the blood filled his nostrils, and he inhaled it, lifting his head and closing his eyes. It was intoxicating. And it was a smell he missed.
Dennis reached for the dead man’s left hand and then removed the wedding ring and pocketed the gold. “Thanks for the wife.” He laughed and left the corpse to rot in the snow.
Back on Main Street, he saw the lines of people being shuttled into the auditorium.
Dennis approached Jimmy and Mulls, who still held the wife of the man he killed, and ran his bloodstained finger from her chin up along her jawline. “Get her a good seat up front.” She turned away, making the smear worse, and that bug started to burrow.
A low murmuring anxiety had filled the massive town hall, which echoed from the high ceilings and tiled floors. Dennis remained in the back, looking at the huddled masses shivering and clutching their pajamas and robes.
The inmates circled around the group like a wolf pack, baring their teeth with their smiles and dripping saliva. There was a fair amount of women inside. Most of the inmates hadn’t even smelled a woman in over a decade.
“Quiet!” Dennis said, his voice booming and triggering a faint shriek from the group, then everyone fell silent. He cut through the middle, forcing the huddled masses to part for him. Dennis liked that. Once he reached the front of the group, he spun around, smiling. “Good evening, Duluth! My name is Inmate 0946.” He gestured to the rest of the prisoners. “And these are a few of my closest friends.”
The inmates chuckled, a few of them pointing to different women in the group. No doubt choosing their favorites.
“My friends and I want a little taste of what you all have here.” Dennis opened his arms, spreading them wide and welcoming. “We’ve been deprived of such luxuries for so long we thought we’d try and take a few from you here.”
“You’re criminals!” a man on his knees shouted. Red blotches covered his face, and his lips quivered uncontrollably like the rest of him. He glanced around accusingly. “You belong back behind bars!”
Two of the inmates made a move for the man, but Dennis held up his hands, and they stopped. He looked at the woman of the man he’d killed out in the snow. To her credit, she didn’t look away when they made eye contact.
“Criminals?” Dennis spoke the question with his eyes still locked onto the woman then finally broke off and set his gaze upon that trembling man. “We’re only criminals because society labeled us that way. But look at society now.”
The people around the man who’d spoken up started to separate themselves from him. All but the woman next to him who clutched his arm nervously.
Dennis knelt when he reached the man, and he placed the end of his pistol against the man’s left temple. “I could blow your brains out, and you know what would happen? You would die, and then I would let those two guys over there fuck your wife.”
The woman whimpered, and the husband protectively tucked his wife behind him. “You can’t do this. It’s against—”
“The law?” Dennis asked. “What law?” He removed the pistol and then pointed it down toward the sheriff’s office. “We killed the deputies and the sheriff. The law is dead.” He leaned closer to the dead man’s ear and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We’re in charge now.”
Dennis stood and then placed the end of his pistol’s barrel against the man’s forehead.
“Please,” the woman said, poking out from behind her husband. “Please, don’t do this. We’ll cooperate. We’ll do whatever you want.”
“Did you hear that, fellas?” Dennis shouted. “She said they’ll do whatever we want!”
Laughter and a few howls and cheers erupted from the inmates, more violence and anger than joy and excitement.
Dennis looked back at the woman, laughing as well. “You might regret saying that, lady.” He squeezed the trigger, the ring of the gunshot cut short by the screams that filled the auditorium. Dennis returned to the front of the hall, stopping at the woman, and he gently ran his hands through her hair. It was soft. Softer than anything he’d felt in a long time. She jerked away after a few seconds, and then he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her to her feet.
“This is our town now!” Dennis said. “We do what we want, to who we want, wherever we want. The more you fight it, the worse it’ll be.” He looked at the inmates, who were practically salivating. “Have fun, boys.”
8
Morning came quickly, and it only brought trouble with it. Mark rolled to his side, his entire body as stiff as a board from his night on the floor, and found Holly on her stomach, drawing in gargled and raspy breaths.
“Holly?” Mark hurried to her side and gently rolled her to her back. Her face was slick with sweat, and the heat pouring off her was tremendous. “Christ, Holly, can you hear me?”
Only raspy breaths answered, and everyone else began to rise from their slumber. Rodney was up first, and he rolled over, concern on his face. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know!” Mark propped Holly up, but the raspy breaths continued.
“Did you give her medicine last night?” Rodney asked, his voice on the edge of calm.
“Of course I did!”
Glen and Laura roused, rubbing their eyes sleepily at the commotion.
“What’s wrong?” Glen asked.
“Can’t we just sleep a little longer?” Laura asked longingly.
“Holly’s getting worse,” Rodney answered, pausing briefly at the foot of their cushions where they slept, and then darted out the door.
“Oh my god,” Laura said, flinging off the quilt that she’d used the night before, and she quickly knelt down by Mark’s side. “What happened?”
“Her breathing is really bad,” Mark said, rocking Holly in his arms as she wheezed for air.
“Did you give her the antibiotics?” Laura asked.
“Yeah. They’re not working.” Mark brushed back the wet and matted hair on Holly’s forehead. In addition to the fever, the sweating, and the wheezing, Holly had grown incredibly pale. All the color from her face was drained, and his daughter looked more dead than alive.
And where was he supposed to take her? He couldn’t call a doctor or drive to a hospital. He couldn’t get online and search WebMD. He was alone with his daughter in a place he’d never been before, in the middle of winter, with no power and no transportation.
Glen and Laura kept quiet and close. Every once in a while, one of them would offer water or food from their pack.
Holly wouldn’t take the food, but Mark forced water down her throat. She had to be dehydrated from sweating so much. He thought about taking her jacket off and stripping her down to her underwear but knew that she’d freeze the moment they stepped outside.
Mark had t
o concentrate to keep the tears from falling. Never in his life had he felt more helpless than he did at that moment. A father was supposed to protect his daughter, shield her from the horrors of the world, and he could do nothing.
The door burst open, and Rodney appeared, bringing with him the light of daybreak. He held a rope and pulled the sled behind him. “Help me get her outside.”
“What?” Mark asked, pulling his daughter out of Rodney’s reach. “We can’t move her. She’ll freeze out there!”
“Her lungs are filled with liquid. She’s choking to death,” Rodney answered, his breath labored as he hunched over with his hands on his knees. “There is hospital ten miles west of us. If we’re lucky, then there still might be some staff that stayed behind after the EMP was triggered. I don’t know if they’ll be able to help, but I can promise you that if we stay here, she will die.”
It wasn’t the words that scared Mark. It was the confidence with which Rodney had spoken them. “All right.” He carried Holly to the sled, setting her down gently, but Holly drew in another harsh rasp. She hacked and coughed, spitting green fluid over the front of her jacket.
Laura gasped, and Glen let out a throaty groan as if he were experiencing the same pain.
“It’s all right, Holly,” Mark said, shushing her whimpering cries. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Holly’s eyelids fluttered, and they cracked open. Her mouth turned down before she began to shed tears. “I want to go home.”
Mark kissed her forehead while Rodney finished securing the sled’s straps. “I know, baby. I know you do.”
Laura rushed back inside and then returned with a pillow. “Here. For her head.”
“Thanks.” Mark jimmied the pillow into place, resting Holly’s head down just as gently. And despite the fever and at Rodney’s urging, they covered her with another blanket.
“Even with the fever, she could still freeze,” Rodney said then turned to the others. “We’ll need to move quickly, but it’ll be hard since we’re cutting through the woods to save time. The snow will be thick.” He spoke to the group, but his eyes were on Glen.
